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(56th Congress, ) HOUSE OF EEPEESENTATIVES. j Document 
M Session. J "j No. 791. 



MANDATE FOR ARMENIA. 



MESSAGE 

FROM THE 



PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES, 

REQUESTING 

THAI HE CONGRESS GRANT THE EXECUTIVE POWER TO ACCEPT 
:'OR THE UNITED STATES A MANDATE FOR ARMENIA. 



May 21, 1920. — Read; referred to the Committee on Foreign Affairs, and ordered 

to be printed. 



Gentlemen of the Congress: 

On the fourteenth of May an official communication was received 
at the Executive Office from the Secretary of the Senate of the United 
States conveying the following preambles and resolutions: 

WTiereas the testimony adduced at the hearings conducted by the subcommittee of 

the Senate Committee on Foreign Relations have clearly established the truth of 

the reported massacres and other atrocities from which the Armenian people have 

suffered; and 
Whereas the people of the United States are deeply impressed by the deplorable 

conditions of insecurity, starvation, and misery now prevalent in Armenia; and 
Whereas the-independence of the Republic of Armenia has been duly recognized by 

the Supreme Council of the Peace Conference and by the Government of the United 

States of America: Therefore be it 

Resolved, That the sincere congratulations of the Senate of the United States are 
'lereby extended to the people of Armenia on the recognition of the independence of 
tlie Republic of Armenia, without prejudice respecting the territorial boundaries 
involved: And be it further 

Resolved, That the Senate of the United States hereby expresses the hope that 
stable government, proper protection of individual liberties and rights, and the full 
realization of nationalistic aspirations may soon be attained by the Armenian people; 
^ nd be it further 

Resolved, That in order to afford necessary protection for the lives and propertir 
of citizens of the United States at the port of Batum and along the line of the raihoad 
1 ading to Baku, the President is hereby requested, if not incompatible with the 
pablic interest, to cause a United States warship and a force of marines to be dispatched 
to such port with instructions to such marines to disembark and to protect Americart 
lives and property. 



Z MANDATE FOR AEMEIsTIA. -"' 

I received and read this document with great interest and with 
genuine gratification, not only because it embodied my own convic- 
tions and feehngs with regard to Armenia and its people, but also, 
and more particularly, because it seemed to Jne the voice of the 
American people expressing their genuine convictions and deep 
Christian sympathies, and intimating the line of duty which seemed 
to them to lie clearly before us. 

I cannot but regard it as providential, and not as a mere casual 
coincidence that almost at the same time I received information that 
the conference of statesmen now sitting at San Eemo for the purpose 
of working out the details of peace with the Central Powers which 
it was not feasible to work out in the conference at Paris, had for- 
mally resolved to address a definite appeal to this Government to 
accept the mandate for Armenia. They were at pains to add that 
they did this, "not from the smallest desire to evade any obligations 
which they might be expected to undertake, but because the respon- 
sibilities which they are already obliged to bear in connection with 
the disposition of the former Ottoman Empire will strain their 
capacities to the uttermost, and because they believe that the ap- 
pearance on the scene of a power emancipated from the preposses- 
sions of the old world will inspire a wider confidence and afford a 
firmer guarantee for stability in the future than would the selection 
of any European power." 

Early in the conferences at Paris it was agreed that to those 
colonies and territories which as a consequence of the late war have 
ceased to be under the sovereignty of the States which formerly 
governed them and which are inhabited by peoples not yet able to 
stand by themselves under the strenuous conditions of the modern 
world there should be applied the principle that the well being and 
development of such peoples form a sacred trust of civilization, and 
that securities for the performance of this trust should be afforded. 

It was recognized that certain communities formerly belonging to 
the Turkish Empire have reached a stage of development where 
their existence as independent nations can be provisionally recog- 
nized, subject to the rendering of administrative advice and assist- 
ance by a mandatory until such time as they are able to stand alone. 

It is m pursuance of this pruiciple and with a desire of affording 
Armenia such advice and assistance that the statesmen conferring at 
San Kemo have formally requested this Government to assume the 
duties of mandatory in Armenia. I may add, for the information of 
the Congress, that at the same sitting it was resolved to request the 
President of the United States to undertake to arbitrate the difficult 
question of the boundary between Turkey and Armenia in the 
Vilayets of Erzerum, Trebizond, Van and Bitlis, and it was agreed 
to accept his decision thereupon, as well as any stipulation he may 
prescribe as to access to the sea for the independent State of Armenia. 
In pursuance of this action, it was resolved to embody in the Treaty 
with Turkey, nov/ mider final consideration, a provision that "Turkey 
and Armenia and the other High Contracting Parties agree to refer 
to the arbitration of the President of the United States of America 
the question of the boundary between Turkey and Armenia in the 
Vilayets of Erzerum, Trebizond, Van and Bitlis, and to accept his 
decision thereupon as well as any stipulation he may prescribe as to 
access to the sea for the independent State of Armenia;" pending 

©2 •t »•• 



ru5 



MANDATE FOR ARMENIA. 



that decision the boundaries of Turkey and Armenia to remain as at 
present. I have thought it my duty to accept this difficult and deli- 
cate task. 

In response to the invitation of the Council at San Remo, I urgently 
advise and request that the Congress grant the Executive power to 
accept for the United States a mandate over Armenia. I make this 
suggestion in the earnest belief that it will be the wish of the people 
of tlie United States that this should be done. The sympathy with 
Armenia has proceeded from no single portion of our people, but has 
come with extraordinary spontaneity and sincerity from the whole 
of the great body of Cliristian men and women in this country by 
whose free-will offerings Armenia has practically been saved at the 
most critical juncture of its existence. At their iiearts this great and 
generous people have made the cause of Ai-menia their own. It is to 
tills people and to their Government tliat tlie Ivopes and earnest 
expectations of the struggling people of Ai-menia turn as they now 
emerge from a period of indescribable suffering and peril, and I hope 
that the Congress will think it wise to meet this hope and expecta- 
tion with the utmost liberality. I know from unmistakable evidences 
given by responsible representatives of many peoples struggling to- 
wards independence and peaceful life again that the Government of 
the United States is looked to with extraordinary trust and confi- 
dence, and I believe that it would do nothing less than arrest the 
hopeful processes of civilization if we were to refuse the request to 
become the helpful friends and advisers of such of these people as we 
may be authoritatively and formally requested to guide and assist. 
I am conscious that I am urging upon the Congress a very critical 
choice, but I make the suggestion "in the confidence that I am speak- 
ing in the spirit and in accordance with the wishes of the greatest of 
the Christian peoples. The sympathy for Armenia among our people 
has sprung from untainted consciences, pure Christian faith, and an 
earnest desire to see Christian people everywhere succored in their 
time of suffering, and lifted from their abject subjection and dis- 
tress and enabled to stand upon their feet and take their place among 
the free nations of the world. Our recognition of the independence 
of Armenia will mean genuine liberty and assured happiness for her 
people, if we fearlessly undertake the duties of guidance and assist- 
c.nce involved in the functions of a mandatory. It is, tlierefore, with 
the most earnest hopefuhiess and with ttie feeling that I am giving 
advice from which the Congress will not wilhngly turn away that I 
urge the acceptance of the invitation now formally and solemnly 
extended to us by the Council at San Remo, into whose hands has 
passed the difficult task of composing the many complexities and 
difficulties of government in the one-time Ottoman Empire and the 
maintenance of order and tolerable conditions of life in those por- 
tions of that Empire which it is no longer possible in the interest of 
civilization to leave under the government of the Turkish authorities 
themselves. 

WooDROw Wilson. 
The White House, 24 May, 1920. 

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